The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to transmission opportunity sharing for autonomous uplink (AUL).
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include fourth generation (4G) systems such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) systems, or LTE-A Pro systems, and fifth generation (5G) systems which may be referred to as New Radio (NR) systems. These systems may employ technologies such as code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), or discrete Fourier transform-spread-OFDM (DFT-S-OFDM). A wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations or network access nodes, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, which may be otherwise known as user equipment (UE).
Certain wireless communications systems may operate in a shared or unlicensed radio frequency spectrum band. For example, wireless devices may perform a channel access procedure, such as a clear channel assessment (CCA) procedure, a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure, and the like. The channel access procedure may allow the wireless device to capture the channel for a transmission opportunity, such as a maximum channel occupancy time (MCOT), a Wi-Fi transmission opportunity (TXOP), and the like. In some instances, the wireless device may share a portion of the transmission opportunity. For example, a UE may capture the shared channel for a transmission opportunity to be used for AUL. In some cases, captured transmission opportunities are underutilized, resulting in wasted transmission resources and inefficient use of the channel.